Devon aristocrat, 105, leaves all her money to her much younger boyfriend

Robert Hay, owner of Bickleigh Castle, has been left more than £600,000 by his controversial former partner, Lady Killearn

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The owner of Bickleigh Castle in mid Devon has just received a windfall from the will of a controversial 105-year-old aristocrat. More than £600,000 has been left to Robert Hay by Jacqueline, Lady Killearn, who was in a relationship with him back in the 1960s.

At the time, this relationship caused quite a stir in society circles as Mr Hay was several decades younger than Lady Killearn - and he was also an ex-boyfriend of her daughter, Bunty.

But now the Daily Mail has revealed that Lady Killearn, who died in 2015 aged 105, has left him her entire fortune in her will.

Jacqueline, Lady Killearn, pictured in 1997

Probate documents have been released and disclose that Lady Killearn bequeathed her total £626,000 estate to Mr Hay, who lives with his wife, Sarah, at Devon's Bickleigh Castle which can be rented out for £12,000 wedding packages. She did not leave any money to her three children.

'It's appalling,' a friend of the family told the Daily Mail. 'No doubt, Mr Hay will be delighted.'

Lady Killearn appointed Mr Hay as an executor of her will and, in the document, Lady Killearn described Hay as her “partner”. She said she was leaving him everything “in thanks for his great help during my lifetime”.

She added: “I have not made any provision for my two daughters and my grandson Miles Lampson as I have made adequate provision for them during my lifetime.”

Bickleigh Castle near Tiverton in Devon

Her daughter, Roxana 'Bunty' Ross, is mother of the top model Liberty Ross. Her other daughter, Jacquetta is the ex-wife of Peregrine, the Earl of St Germans, whose family is based in south east Cornwall at the Port Eliot estate. Lady Killearn did not even mention her son Victor, with whom she had a disagreement over her 13-bedroom Jacobean property in East Sussex, Haremere Hall.

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Lady Killearn was just 24 when she wed 53-year-old Sir Miles Lampson, Britain's High Commissioner in Cairo. After his death, she was being escorted by Robert Hay, then 37, a surprising liaison given the wide age gap and the fact that he had previously gone out with her daughter Roxana. By the 1970s, however, the relationship appears to have changed. “I was originally romantically involved with Lady Killearn,” Mr Hay admitted in 1976. “We’re still very friendly but we’re more like business partners.”

Sarah Hay, Robert's wife and co-owner of Bickleigh Castle

Robert Hay subsequently married his wife Sarah but his relationship with Lady Killearn became a matter of comment again in 2008 when she was taken to an industrial tribunal by an ex-employee, an Italian former butler called Paolo Sclarandis.

Sclarandis, who had been hired by Lady Killearn in 2004 and dismissed in 2006, claimed that he had found her living “in squalor, with dangerous wiring, piles of clothes in her cramped bedroom and her bathroom falling to pieces” and complained that she had treated him as her “slave”.

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Lady Killearn was alleged to have called him a “selfish prat”, “toad” and “monster” and pelted him with walking sticks while Robert Hay, her “toyboy” (according to Sclarandis), had allegedly cut Sclarandis’s expected salary by nearly £4,000 and had shared a hotel room with Lady Killearn in Turin without telling his wife. “Lady Killearn is despotic,” Sclarandis concluded. “She still thinks she’s living in the glory days of the British Empire.”

Bickleigh Castle viewed from the air

The charges were contested by Lady Killearn and by Robert Hay. Mr Hay admitted, however, that he had shared a hotel room (though not a bed) with Lady Killearn in Turin. He insisted that their relationship was innocent – and, in fairness, Lady Killearn was in her late nineties at the time. The industrial tribunal ruled in the butler’s favour but awarded him only £1,200 (he had claimed £217,000).

In 2014 Lady Killearn was a guest at a grand fancy dress banquet at Bickleigh Castle, to celebrate Robert and Sarah Hay’s first ten years of running the property as a wedding venue.

At the party, Julian Fellowes – creator of Downton Abbey – made a speech crediting Lady Killearn with introducing him to his wife Emma.

Bickleigh Castle dates back to the 11th century and the chapel is believed to be even older, possibly 6th century. Wedding packages for a weekend, during which you have the whole castle to yourself, start at £12,000.